I SAW a friend's recent Facebook status which read 'I am bold'. But it was his friend's cheeky response - 'I am underlined' - that got me chuckling.
It's a great pithy statement and one that certainly applies to the upcoming Fall/Winter 09 runway make-up looks.
If spring/summer's muse played up her girlish innocence with barely-there make-up, fall/winter's diva wears 'emotive make-up'.
She has a point of view and plenty of brass, and not afraid to show it.
Her pout is created and amplified with brazen colour; her cheekbones, like the shoulder pads of the '80s (incidentally, they're back in favour too) are sculpted and contoured to perfection.
Her dark smoky gaze has a nasty, girl-gang subtext - think of the late fashion photographer Helmet Newton's stylised sado-masochistic pictures.
She has a pronounced, deliberate bearing.
And the looks require precision application and tools like good brushes, says Gordon Espinet, vice-president of global make-up company M.A.C.
It's bad news for lazy girls, since the five-minute-get-ready face is over.
But as with hard, economic times, only the fittest will survive; likewise those that make the effort will make an impact, and this fall female is definitely alpha, fierce.
GIVE ME LIP
THINK: The best of the '80s - the loud, electro-pop colours. But thankfully you're not wearing it all over this time, only on one focal point, the lips. This modern update makes it powerful, not 'obiang'.
WEAR IT WELL WITH: Satiny skin and muted eye make-up or bare gazes.
YOU'LL NEED: Semi-matt or cream textured lipsticks or opaque glosses in eye-popping (exorbitant would be the word) shades like fuchsia pink, fire-engine red, crimson.
English runway make-up guru Terry Barber says: 'Lip liner is a big trend this season, used to form a lip rather than outline it.'
That way, he says, you get a 'perfect mouth with a proper harmonious plumpness to it without looking injected'. A lip brush will also help to give you precision application, so colour stays within the lines of being lurid.
EYE SEE YOU, BABY
THINK: An intense, smoked-out stare that's biker-gang warrior fierce. The effect is less 3am 'next morning' and instead more 'deliberate', says Barber. 'We're shaping the eye with specifically considered structures, not just random blackness.'
WEAR IT WELL WITH: Satiny skin with just a sheer tint of pink flush or sculpted bronzed cheeks and a very nude or bare mouth.
YOU'LL NEED: Black, carbon or slate grey eye shadows in a matt or metallic finish, dark kohl pencils, black mascara (pick a volume-boosting waterproof formula for added oomph).
TIP: French runway make-up legend Tom Pecheux suggests using a kohl pencil around the eye to set the shape you want and then press eye shadow powder into it for 'a waxen boot-polished texture that lasts and isn't too powdery'.
SHOW YOUR FACE
THINK: David Bowie in Princess Bride, with his sculpted, punk-goth profile. Cheekbones are constructed without plastic surgery, relying on make-up application techniques of highlighting and contouring, or 'Photoshopping, pre-Photoshop', says English make-up great Val Garland.
WEAR IT WELL WITH: Muted, smoky eyes, neutral or soft lips.
YOU'LL NEED: Matt and shimmer finishing or face powders - mineral make-up formulas, which are all rage now, are ideal for this. Bronzing powders (with or without shimmer pigments) are also good. You'll also need good brushes. As Garland points out: 'It's not finger make-up, it's brush make-up... and don't buy cheap, buy well.'
This article was first published in The New Paper
